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ZERO S01E04: Barren Home
Episode 4: Barren Home is the fourth episode of Star Rider ZERO, an online written show by Haou1987. It began on October 8, 2013. It features Mark and Ashley to investigate the waste disposal site of ARCO Industries and the ghost town that came to exist after the area had been cleaned up by authorities and ARCO Industries. Characters introduced: Matt Dannon, Milou Dannon, General Malcolm Arthur, Ghoul Zero Production and writing time: 'October 8, 2013 - October 14, 2013 Synopsis A radio is revealed to be lying in dark grey sand, playing the morning tune of NY5 Radio, with a weather forecast being announced as it would be a sunny day with few clouds on the sky and no rain. As the camera pans out a barren wasteland is revealed, with empty carcasses of houses, destroyed cars, heaps of sand and stones, but no people around. As the radio keeps playing, the camera pans around the houses to the horizon. A blue sky is revealed far and wide as rivers surround the streets connecting to the already revealed street. The water in the river is dark green, brown even, dirty. As the camera comes around a board, it is revealed to be a danger sign, alerting tresspassers this is a Zone Zero area and that radiation levels are dangerously high. Just outside the settlement another board is revealed with distances to certain cities. One of them reveals that New York is only 50 miles away. Back in the street, in one of the heaps of sand, suddenly a hand bursts from the ground. ''7 years ago ... Alarms went off, people were running around, authorities came charging into the streets of Dellaville, a small town. Various police cars with megaphones drove around, alerting citizens on a heightened health risk. People with deteroriating health or heightening temperature or headaches should immediately go to the CDC Risk Assessment Post in Town. A family of a father, two daughters and a son are hurrying out of the house, the son very sick and having boils around his body, asking for help everywhere. Their neighbours or the police refused to help, ordering them to go to the CDC Post and let them handle it. Moving along through the street, they reach the outpost of the CDC at which one of the daugthers reveals to have starting to get boils as well. One of the people of the CDC informs the father they will take care of the son and the daughter, she just needs their names. The father registers them as Olivia and Lucas Crena, saying he is Poul Crena and that is his youngest daughter Valery. Present... Mark enters the Drumont Holdings Bank, feeling a little uncomfortable as the last time he was there, all hell broke loose. Arriving at one of the desks, Mark informs the clerk that he wants to set up a seperate account for three people, with only these three people to access it. The clerk tells him very well and he is handed a form and is asked by the clerk to fill it in. After doing so, Mark tells him it should be fine like that. The clerk asks him interested, why he wants to set up an account here. After all the bank had been robbed a few days ago. Mark smiles, telling the clerk, addressing him as Matt (from the nametag), he trusts the bank and after all he is going into dangerous territories these days. As Matt tells him he will set it up today, and will inform Mark as soon as it is done. It does require Mark to deposit a certain amount of credits in the account to properly activate it. Mark gives him his own account number, saying he can deposit a 1000 credits from there into the new account. As Mark leaves, Matt gets a call from a girl he refers to as his sister. Mark goes to pick up Ashley, asking her if she packed an overnight bag. He doesn't know how long they may be away and it coule be they pick a hotel instead of heading back. Ashley tells him she always has an overnight bag ready and they set off. Ashley asks him if he is sure that it is safe to head into Dellaville and Mark says he checked it with local authorities. Any health risk is minimal to null, there is no need for them to use protective suits or any injections, but just to be sure he picked up a first aid kit from the shop near the hotel for any unforseen circumstances. As they set off to the open road, Ashley asks Mark if he has tried to get in touch with his family yet, but Mark refuses to go into that now. Ashley says family is important, he shouldn't keep them away from him forever. Mark tells her to cool it off and that they should move on. Arriving at the outskirts of Dellaville, Mark and Ashley step out of the car and Mark tells her they will move on foot from here. Ashley asks where they are going first and Mark points to a nearby stream of dirty water running through the settlement. They go down there, and Ashley becomes almost sick of the smell coming from the water and how filthy it is. Mark says while ARCO Industries and the authorities may have cleaned up the mess around here, the water is polluted by venom and other waste. What the authorities did here was unforgivable but necessary to wipe any trace out of radioactive waste or venom or any dead carriers of the radioactive diseases or any other virus. Looking at Ashley, Mark asks she does know that the US Government ordered for a clean sheath here? Ashley says she didn't. Mark says it was all over the news back then. Furious debates between the US President and his cabinet about the disaster and how they should handle it. While it was an inhumane thing to do against the dead bodies still inside the Zone Zero, it was necessary to make sure nothing would spread. Seven years ago... As Poul Crena and his most healthy daughter Valery were waiting for a medical checkup, a black humvee appeared near the CDC Post. A five star general appeared from it, dressed in protective gear. A CDC Doctor addresses him as General Arthur, asking him what news he brings from Washington. General Arthur tells the CDC Doctor that unfortunately it is not good. Washington demands the outbreak to be contained and otherwise eliminated at it's core. The female CDC Doctor that previously helped out Poul and Valery comes and asks if that means what she thinks that means and the General tells her, without any regard for rank, yes it does. He orders the CDC staff to move all bodies to the center, in thirty-six hours the Firestorm Protocol will be activated by the US President. All bodies accounted for will be left in Dellaville. All people infected, not cleared or quarantined, will be forced to stay inside their houses during the Protocol Initiation. As the General leaves to speak with his men, the female CDC Doctor returns to Poul and Valery, and Poul, having overheard the conversation of the Doctors with the General asks what the Firestorm Protocol means. The female CDC Doctor tells him it means they are going to level the place. She then leaves to the safe zone, where she pulls off her mask revealing her to be Samantha (the same CDC Doctor that helped Mark and Ashley in the present). Present... Mark and Ashley scour the settlement to find anything relating to what happened here before, when Mark decides to step inside one of the ruined houses. Ashley stays outside to make some pictures. Mark searches through the place, when he doesn't notice the ground having disappeared in one part of the house. He falls in the hole, however ZERO saves him by bonding with him and catching the blow by manipulating the masses around him. Inside the hole, ZERO uses the water to lead Mark as Star Rider ZERO to a tunnel leading under the house. As he follows it, he notices the water dripping through the ground on the tunnel's floor, turning it green. However through his enhanced senses, Mark realizes he is being followed and hides behind a corner as a little girl with a teddy bear scours around the tunnel. Mark, still as Star Rider ZERO steps out of the shadow, but the girl barely seems to hear him or recognize him. As Star Rider ZERO touches her shoulder, the girl turns around in such ferousity that Mark is knocked back. Realizing there are some survivors still around, Mark decides to leave the girl behind and go back up. As he turns around, more people come from the opposite direction. Emotionless, speechless and blankly staring at Star Rider ZERO, they approach him. Seeing their clothes, Mark realizes these are people that have been exposed exponentionally to the venom and radioactive waste. Seeing no way out, Star Rider ZERO begins pushing them aside to get to the exit, but they seem to be holding him back. ZERO takes over control from Mark and greatly increases the mass of his arms, plunging the infected humans against the wall. Mark takes over again and manages to levitate himself, by controlling the masses around him to the surface. Mark sighs he still needs to get used to this. Star Rider ZERO makes himself known to Ashley who asks where Mark is. Star Rider ZERO tells Ashley Mark is safe, but she is in trouble. As the little girl appears from down the hole, Star Rider ZERO shields Ashley from her sight, while the girl comes after them. Star Rider ZERO tells Ashley to go back to her car. Ashley asks him what he is or where he comes from. Star Rider ZERO tells her he will tell her one time, but not now. He covers her leaving as more and more infected people are entering the area from below the grounds, the tunnels. Star Rider ZERO tells Ashley to move, while Ashley is whining that she doesn't want to leave Mark. Star Rider ZERO, with Mark in control, tells her he will go pick him up when he brought her to her car. Trusting Star Rider ZERO for now, Ashley asks who these things are. Star Rider ZERO tells her that these are the people, he thinks, that have been exposed to long to the radiated waste and venom and therefore mutated or died. Ashley concludes with saying they are zombies thus, but Star Rider ZERO says these are not zombies, he doesn't know if they died or if they are still living. Leaving Ashley with her car, Star Rider ZERO returns into the settlement, attracting the attention of all infected people down there and he leads them further into settlement hoping to find some more evidence as to what happened there. Ashley in the meantime calls her boss to tell him what happened and where they are and what might have happened with Mark and that the masked and armored man who wrecked havoc was here, saving her. Star Rider ZERO once again finds himself face to face with the little girl. As more and more infectees enter the area, Star Rider ZERO is forced to knock some of them out and accidently impale one of them on a stick from a former fence. The girl starts to laugh hollowly and turns around, moving back inside the crater. As he tries to follow her, more and more infectees close in on him, and he uses his powers to melt a piece of metal, knocking down a large power pole, trapping some of the infectees, but allowing him to continue and follow the girl. Travelling back to the house where he came from under the ground, Star Rider ZERO tries to grab the girl, but the girl is faster, falling down on the ground, breaking everything, but seemingly capable of setting everything right. Star Rider ZERO, now followed by the infectees who managed to escape, drops down as well and is forced to fight the girl. Knocking her uncoscious, Star Rider ZERO's head part melts away, allowing Mark to look around with his own eyes. Searching the girl, he finds a piece of paper, but before he is able to read it, the infectees drop down as well and Mark reforms the liquid armor around his head, to take down the infectees. Realizing there are too much infectees, he retreats into a tunnel going further into the city. Seeing how the tunnels are sported by metal, Star Rider ZERO melts away some of the metal to cave the tunnel in trapping the infectees at the other side. Realizing he is further into the city, he goes up the ground into a house where he finds three bodies, that of one girl, a boy and a man. They were all killed with a single gunshot. Seven years ago... General Arthur returns to the CDC Post, telling Samantha she has two hours left to check up anyone and then start moving her stuff out. Poul and Valery, who hear this and are still waiting to be checked up, demand to know what happened with Olivia and Lucas. Reading their names from a list, Samantha and them discover them to be on the side of the infected people and particularly in the section of the people who died due to the radiation diseases. Poul demands Samantha will perform one of those tests on him and Valery immediately and Samantha agrees, telling them she is so sorry. General Arthur, in the meantime, orders his man to advance into the settlement and take any precautions needed to secure all non-infected people and contain the people who are not. As Poul and Valery are being tested, Poul asks Samantha what the General means with containing. Samantha tells him he doesn't want to know the answer to that. Present ... Star Rider ZERO makes it to the edge of the settlement, where it is noted that the danger is over. As he sees the van with Ashley near it, he transforms back to himself. With the piece of paper in his pocket, Mark makes his way to Ashley, who is very happy to see him. After exchanging some pleasantries, Mark asks her if she managed to get something good from the photo's. Ashley shows him multiple pictures, of lifeless bodies, destroyed houses, empty cars and whatnot. She thinks with old information on who lived where, it will be very possible to construct a good story on what happened and maybe some tales from survivors, who are willing to come out about it. Mark, in the meantime, thinks it should be a means to pull Madison Crena back out in the open, make sure she doesn't end up in the hands of the Cartel. Mark tells Ashley they should get going again. Ashley tells him they can't. As Mark wants to step into the van, black SUV's appear and three black helicopters fly overhead. Men in dark suits arrive and tell Mark and Ashley to stand down. Mark asks Ashley what she did. Ashley swears she didn't do anything. She called Horace and he told her to stay put and see if he would come back from the settlement. She didn't know these men would come. The front man of the men in dark suits, says he is Agent 001 of the US Government and that he wishes to talk to them both. They tresspassed on forbidden property, property that no-one came on for years. Mark tells him they are reporters, they have every right to be here. Agent 001 says that may be, but they don't take chances, not after Star Rider ZERO made an appearance here. Ashley gasps, realizing she gave that away. Agent 001 leads Mark and Ashley to one of the black SUV's where they are blindfolded and they drive away. Seven years ago ... A white SUV drives up to a police blockade. A pair of police man stop the car, telling her she cannot go any further. The window rolls down as inside a younger Madison Crena was revealed. She tells the officers she lives here in Dellaville, they should let her through. The officers tell her she cannot go any further, the village has been declared a Zone Zero. Realizing what it means, she demands to be let through, as her family still is in there. The officers reluctantly let her through and tell her to report to the front CDC Post. Driving up at the front CDC Post, Madison meets Samantha who finished the check up on Poul and Valery. Asking what the results are, Poul seems to be grim looking, while Valery is in tears. Poul says he has been affected by the radiation and that he is ordered to go back into the village for containing it. Valery is okay. As the soldiers order Poul to move, he gives an airy kiss to Madison and waves to Valery before running back into the village, after which Samantha tells Valery to go to her mother. Valery however doesn't do this and runs after her father. Madison wanting to go in there, is held back by the soldiers and pushed back in her SUV, ordering her to leave. Distraught and unaware of what to do, she retreats behind the first command post. At that moment three strikefighters of the US Airforce fly overhead releasing a rain of bombs on the village, initiating the Firestorm Protocol commissioned by the US President. Screaming and shouting and tearfull, Madison has to be held back by all officers available, saying there is nothing they or she can do anymore, it is done and over. Madison falls on the ground, crying. Present ... As the three black helicopters and the SUV's clear out, the radio from the beginning scene starts playing again, with another weather forecast forecasting a storm is going to hit the land and that people better store up on goods, because the storm will hit hard. As the camera pans around the heap of sand where before the hand burst out, the house with the man, girl and boy in it, is revealed to have no floor anymore. However the man, boy and girl suddenly move, seemingly waking up, dropping down into the hole where the floor should be, joining the horde of infectees that now have spread under the entire settlement... Trivia *First episode in this series and in the universe overall to introduce a character, albeit shortly, that will recieve his own feature series, starting with a miniseries. Previous episode doesn't count as it appeared after the credits. *This is the first episode of the series to use flashbacks as a way to advance the plot. In this case the waste disposal incident aftermath. Seasons 1 - 2 Season 1 1 - 2 - 3 - '''4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 Category:Star Rider ZERO Episodes Category:Star Rider ZERO Season 1 Episodes